Selected
references from:
“Beyond the metaphor: football and war, 1914-1918”
DALE JAMES BLAIR
Department of Humanities
Victoria University of Technology,
Australia
Journal of the Australian War memorial Issue 28
April 1996
While there was divisiveness associated with playing
football at home during war-time, there were no qualms about the game's value
within the Army. Football, and sport in general, were seen as providing troops
with recreation, as well as keeping them fit for active service. It is not
surprising that football was enthusiastically played and supported by the
soldiers overseas: apart from the obvious relief from the rigours of front-line
service, the game provided a tangible link with home through the memories it
evoked in homesick soldiers. For soldiers from the southern and western states,
the unique nature of the Australian game might also have further underscored
their view of themselves as distinct from the soldiers of other nations.
Lieutenant G.H. Goddard, of the 59th Battalion, wrote:
It was possible to make a
good guess at the State from which a certain man hailed by the vehemence with
which he supported a certain brand of football ... The patronising manner in
which a supporter of one particular game would ask another to 'come and see a
real football match' was quite amusing.
A popular portrayal of the game as played during the
war is contained in Peter Weir's film, Gallipoli,
which includes a scene in which a game of Australian Rules is played beneath
the great pyramids. The incongruity of the game's setting, as well as the men's
passion, is highlighted by a conversation between one of the heroes, Frank, and
his mate, Bill. Gazing at the pyramids, Bill is moved to comment on the
magnitude of the Pharaohs' attempts to beat death. His observation is lost on
Frank who replies: 'Thanks Professor. Look, can you get your mind back on the
game. Let's think about the West Australians' first attempt to beat the bloody
Vics [Victorians]'.
The passion many soldiers felt for the game
certainly saw it played in some strange settings. Even the confines of the
position at Gallipoli, it would appear, could not dampen the men's enthusiasm.
T.J. Richards, who was a member of the 1st Battalion (from New South Wales) and
a former rugby international for Australia, recalled one of his sporting
experiences:
Football matches were out
of the question at ANZAC; yet, one afternoon when I came over from Brown[s] Dip
towards White's Gully I was surprised at seeing a football floating through the
air. I set off down into the blind valley, and joined in with a number of
Victorians who had brought the ball from Egypt with them.
The lack of proper playing fields, particularly of
the large size required for Australian football, was always a problem. The 40th
Battalion, a Western Australian unit, resolved the problem by devising their
own game which they called 'mobbing'. It was played with a hessian bag filled
with straw, and the game had no rules other than that the bag could not be
kicked. The basic object of the game was to force or throw the bag through the
opposition's goal. The beauty of the game was that it could be played 'on any
old ground'.
Undoubtedly the high point of Australian football overseas
was a match held at the Queen's Club, London, before a crowd of 3,000 and in
the presence of the Prince of Wales, on the last Saturday of October, 1916.
This match was played between sides representing the 3rd Division and the
Combined Training Units and was notable for the numerous top players on both
sides. Padre
C.J. Perry, vice-captain of Norwood (South Australia), led the Combined
Training Units team, and Bruce Sloss, the former South Melbourne star and 1911
Champion of the Colony, captained the 3rd Division team. It was one of the last
games of football Sloss played. He was killed in Flanders a little over two
months later, during a German raid upon his Battalion's trenches.
Most of the games played overseas were in very
different conditions from the London match. A description of an encounter on
the Somme, near the village of La Boiselle, between the 27th and 28th
Battalions is indicative of the conditions often endured by the soldiers:
The ground was situated
amidst the heavy system of entrenchments that had constituted the German front
line ... Practically surrounded by trenches, the ground frozen and strewn with
pieces of barbed wire and fragments of shells. Sheltering from the cold wind,
the spectators viewed the game from the trenches, their heads just visible
above the ground. A few plucky volunteers held the goal posts in position
during the game.
Lieutenant L.G. Shout, a former staff member of the Argus, wrote home giving an account of a
match played upon a pock-marked field within shell range of the main firing
line. The match was one between officers and NCOs in which sheepskin jerkins
and cardigans were worn as playing shirts:
But the saddest and most
realistic touch of all lay behind the goal-posts on the southern end. It was a
small heap of earth -- the grave of dead soldiers -- with the simple but
sublime superscription 'To unknown British Heroes'.
The war could never be forgotten. Nevertheless,
Shout felt that the game had given the men fresh heart for it, and 'had carried
their thoughts vividly back to those happy days when football was played in
certain Melbourne suburbs they had called "home"'.
Recognising the important role which sport could
play, in 1919 the organisers of the British Expeditionary Forces sports scheme
issued specific guidelines for the conduct of sports, and attempted to elevate
the purpose of play by including ideals borrowed from amateurism. One of its
objectives was to 'instil the root principle of true sport, viz: "Play for
your side and not for yourself"'. This was to be achieved by abolishing
money prizes, providing individual winners with trophies of 'little intrinsic
value', and presenting team trophies.
This article has suggested that while there were
occasional differences between the Army and the organisers and players of
football, there was rather more cooperation than conflict, particularly at the
front line. Given the appalling circumstances of life behind the trenches and
the lack of entertainment, sport was seized upon by both military organisers
and the ranks as a means of maintaining morale and normalcy. Playing even the
most primitive games was a reminder of home. Since sport was such an integral
element of Australian culture, playing it in most inhospitable circumstances
was a way of asserting identity on the war-front.
The irony of wartime football lay in the mock
tragedy of the game against the genuine tragedy of war. While players and
spectators pondered the 'what ifs' of near misses on the football field, near
misses at the front had a sharper edge and constituted the fragile line between
life and death in the trenches. Awkward as this fact was, there was a need for
games. To support football while supporting the soldiers at the front was not a
contradiction to large sections of the community.
Experience did strip away one of the myths of
sportsmen and war, that sportsmen would make the best soldiers. The early
deaths of Melbourne's 'Joe' Pearce and Collingwood's Allan Cordner on the day
of the landing at Gallipoli, before their sporting prowess could be put to the
test, and the manner in which Carlton player George Challis was literally
blown to bits' in France, provided conclusive proof that athleticism was
rendered impotent in the face of modern war.
A full
copy of Blair’s article in the Journal can be found at
http://www.awm.gov.au/journal/j28/j28-blai.asp
Last Modified on 19/11/2010 14:59